| Bit of a rant here I'm afraid, largely due to the fact that I have spent the entire morning walking miles across South West London trying to find a place to live but have only succeeded in being thrown despairing and disparaging looks from smug estate agents as we tell them our price range. I'm hoping to rent with two of my current housemates as we are being forced out of our current house as the landlord has decided to take advantage of the ridiculous house prices being charged in London at the moment but it seems that all £100 a week will get you these days is a bedsit in a 'restructured ex-local authority abode' (ie: damp shit-hole). Ideally I would buy a property of my own, and anywhere else in England my salary would allow me to buy a reasonable 4-5 bedroomed house with a nice garden and parking spaces but in the sprawling metropolis of Olde London Towne I would be lucky to buy a one-bed flat in even a half decent area. What really annoys me however is the reaction that I have had in almost every estate agents that I have visited. Usually after we had uttered the words 'no more than £300 a week please' the estate agent will look from under his floopy fringe as if we have just crawled out from under a rock and release a puff of disgust from his flared nostrils and reply 'I really don't think you're going to find anywhere for THAT price around here' The same exact reaction will happen if I inquire as to the availability of properties to buy. Now, correct me if I'm wrong but your common or garden estate agent's salary is OKish but by no means can the people I am having to deal with in high street branches of small to medium chains of property brokers afford to buy or rent any more than I can. I happen to earn a reasonable amount of money and resent being treated like a piece of shit by shysters whose very existence is funded by people like me. 'The customer is always right' seems to have been left out of the estate agents sales manual. | 
